


The Affections of Wolves

by gentlezombie



Category: Le Pacte des Loups | Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)
Genre: M/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 03:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gentlezombie/pseuds/gentlezombie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas d'Apcher recounts a previously untold incident. Set near the end of the movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Affections of Wolves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AntigravityDevice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntigravityDevice/gifts).



_Today the ache in my joints is worse and it is hard to hold onto the quill. Still, I cannot abandon my task quite yet. This morning I found a dried leaf between the pages of my journal. It brought an old man some amusement and a memory. There are, after all, some things I have neglected to tell...  
_  
With the death of the beast, Gevaudan returned to a state of relative peace. My disdain for humans, however, did not seem to lessen. The once dear countryside had revealed its dark, crawling underside. I could not forget the madness I had seen any more than the malicious, crafty intellect that had been the source of the evil. I knew that in the years to come it would be my responsibility to look after these people, good and bad alike. It did not bear thinking about.

Instead I thought of the beast. In the moment of death, its yellow eyes had been sad. The image of Fronsac caressing its golden fur with his thumb had been burned into my mind. I imagined an understanding between the hunter and the hunted, though what passed between them I did not know. I felt more sorry for the beast than for its victims.

What Fronsac was thinking of during those heavy, quiet days I could not say.

We rode out often in the damp mornings. Fronsac kept the collar of his coat up against the permeating mist. It reminded me of the day of his arrival. But it was only him, now, and this time I knew he was not concealing a smile.

We had our weapons with us for the sake of appearances. I doubt either of us wanted anything except a reason to avoid human company. The desire to do this with each other is one of the curiosities of human nature. Want it or not, we are pack animals. Alone we are lost.

I sensed a brittleness in Fronsac that had not been there before. Even slowed down by my own grief, I worried at his withdrawal. I remembered how the snakes in Mani's tattoos had twisted and flowed when he moved. Fronsac was coiled in on himself. His face, blank as a reptile's, was impossible for me to read.

A snake will raise its head at an irritation or a threat if it has not yet been chilled by the frost. I do not remember what I said or if I said anything at all. I had caught a hare with my crossbow. The bolt must have punctured a major artery. When I removed the bolt, blood poured over my fingers and into the ground.

Fronsac caught my wrist and turned my hand palm-up like a fortune-teller.

"Why did you kill it?"

Surprised by his anger, I could not think of the right answer if there was one. I did not need the animal's meat to eat or its fur for a pair of gloves. I had shot it because I had wanted to. Out of numbness and boredom.

"I don't know." He was very good at making me feel guilty. Suddenly I resented him for it. He was blaming me for something that had been a tradition and a pastime over generations. A man of the city telling the uncivilised country boy what was what. "Is it a crime to kill animals, now?"

His grip on my wrist turned crushing.

"That's what they said about him. An animal, they called him, and he was killed like one too."

He was standing close enough that I could make out each of his eyelashes and the black paint that still stubbornly clung to some. I stopped trying to pull away. He was asking _why did you kill it_ when what he meant was _why did they kill him_. I may sometimes speak before thinking, but deliberate cruelty is not in my nature. He was the one I wanted to hurt least of all. Confronted with his loss, I was ashamed of my own petty thoughts.  
   
"They tortured him, did you know that? I counted every wound on his body." I hadn’t known. He had not told me. "They strung him on a cross like a carcass, and they killed him because it amused them to do so."

Fronsac was trembling. I felt it in his fingers. Not knowing what else to do, I laid a hand on his shoulder.

"I am sorry for your loss." I had not been able to say it earlier. Not without thinking of my own losses first.

He shook his head like a dog. It was of no use. I could still see the tears in his eyes.

"Not as sorry as me," he said gruffly. He was looking at me in a way I could not decipher. "And I'm sorry for this too."

We were standing close enough. It was easy for him to pull me closer still.

I felt mostly surprise as he kissed me. Had we not been talking of death and guilt and blame? Perhaps a better man might have stopped him. Thank God I have never been _that_ good.

It was novel, although not in the way you may think. I had certainly done my share of everything to the extent it was possible in my circumstances. I had been kissed playfully. I had been kissed with naked need. But Fronsac kissed me like he needed it to stay sane. He kissed me like a man with an iron will who is used to bending or breaking the obstacles in his way.

I yielded, of course. I have always been adaptable.

My back hit the ground with a thud. I surged towards him, seeking purchase with my legs and my teeth. The grip he still had on my wrists was purely decorative. If he had retreated, I would have chased after him. We rolled around in the dirt, colliding and crashing into each other with a violent care that reminded me of the play of wolf pups. But we were too old for games. The sort of release we both craved became obvious in the fevered urgency of our bodies.

Fronsac ended up on top of me, which was only to be expected. I gasped when he ground his hips against mine in a slow, deliberate motion, and he covered my mouth with his hand. For some reason that new obstacle only stoked the fire in me. I bit down and taste the bitter-sweet tang of leather. Fronsac’s hiss was gratifying, but not as gratifying as his hand as it sneaked down past my breeches. Not as good as the touch of his flesh against mine.

Fronsac had closed his eyes. I kept mine wide open to remember every detail. I do remember everything. The quirk of his eyebrows, the way his mouth slackened in pleasure. His lips were moving in a prayer or an apology, but it was in a language that was impossible for me to understand.

I recognised in Fronsac an experienced touch. I also knew he was not intent on my pleasure. Yet I surrendered myself into his hands because I wanted to. For this moment I almost had him. That alone was good enough to make me dizzy. Had his hand not covered my mouth with such force I would have scared all the wildlife this side of the village.

I found my release before him, biting down all the way through the protective layer of leather. I had time to calm down enough to watch him. I urged him on shamelessly, my ankles still hooked around his calves. When Fronsac looked down at me, I was certain his clouded green eyes saw something else. It was that something that made him let out a small broken sound I shall never forget. The sound of something wounded and tired beyond bearing.

After the tension had gone, the weight of him on top of me was almost crushing.

Fronsac blinked like a man waking from a dream. I took the hand he offered to help me up. I let him brush most of the leaves out of my hair. I don’t know if he felt guilty about what had happened. I doubt he knew himself.

I must admit a vice of mine: I am greedy. I had received far more than I had ever expected, but still I would have wanted more.

“Did you get what you were looking for?” I asked. The look he gave me made me curse my damned tongue. Yet I could not be sorry because I was rewarded with the awkward touch of his hand on my dirty cheek. Perhaps he knew something of my own sadness and its causes after all.

“No.”

And how could he have? He had lost his brother, his companion, his mate. He had lost Marianne. I don’t know what he had been looking for but he had not found it in me.

Later, Fronsac did ask me to come with him to America. I like to think it was because he genuinely liked me.

“Little Marquis,” he said to me over a glass of wine too many, “come with me and I’ll show you the New World.”

“Only the courtesans call me that,” I told him and was rewarded with a crooked smile.

“What would you like to be called, then?”

“A brother,” I said. I was in the habit of being too careless with my crossbow and with my words.

“Little brother,” he said and touched my glass with his.

That was answer enough. And I knew I could not go with him.

 _So I remained and stood guard over my lands as my fathers had done before me. I met other men and women and loved them well enough. What passed between Fronsac and myself was only a fevered dream – a desperate reaching out when the world around us was falling into unfamiliar shadows. Although at the time it felt bitter, I do not regret loving him. Perhaps I could offer him some consolation, some help on his way._

 _If nothing else, the memory of him warms an old man’s bones._

**Author's Note:**

> Have some angst for Christmas ♥ I swear one day I'll write something happy with lots of snarky dialogue, but this came to me when rewatching the movie and I decided to go with it...


End file.
